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HTC, divorce WinMo and concetrate on software that gets the best out of your incredible hardware!

My first foray into the smartphone market, I draw myself up a list of phone manufacturers. All I hear is good things about HTC and certainly at the time the HD2 was a flagship model. I plump for it and eagerly await delivery. The box comes and I am far from disappointed. The box itself has a feel of quality and the fondleslab inside looks amazing. The huge display promises so much and HTC's Sense user interface looks amazing. The feel of it is heavy, reassuring, metallic - all the things my previous phones have not been. I am at this point like a kid at Christmas!

The Snapdragon processor seems perfectly capable of powering the whole phone nicely at 1GHz it has more power than my 199 PC! I instantly fire up teeter (game app included) to test out the gyroscope and capacitive touch screen and I am not disappointed. So far so good!

Day 2 reality begins to set in. I fire up the marketplace for WinMo 6.5 excited about the potential apps that I can get and am immediately underwhelmed, if you have ever looked through Appple or Androids App Store or Market place you will find a plethora of goodies to turn a phone into a genuinely useful tool. The WinMo marketplace was virtually barren! Ah well, I had a few bits and pieces, surely it wont be too bad. I decide to fire up the camera, 5Mp, dual LED flash - sounds great! Hmm, non adjustable flash which either leaves you looking ata black screen when off or ghostly white figures squinting blindly. The few shots that did manage to get some white balance are tinged purple at the edges for no apparent reason. A major disappointment given that I hoped to leave my compact digital at home!

So no apps, crap camera. Well at least it looks pretty. And with the lack of apps and photo shoots surely the battery life will be immense. Nope. Powering up the giant screen clearly takes it's toll, general usage managed about 18 hours between charges, intense use led to 3 charges per day. oh dear.

Couple this all with a real lack of (448Mb) RAM that meant running more than one thing at a time meant a real slowdown and often crashes. So my new toy was not all I had hoped, sure call quality was fine and texting was easy with the Swype keyboard system a nice bonus, but I felt let down and deflated knowing that I had committed to an 18 month contract didn't help!

The phone hardware in general seemed good, although the decision to add 5 hard buttins at the bottom of the screen was rather odd. The lack of RAM aside I suspect that a different OS on this hardware would be great!

To cut an already long review short I bought my way out of the contract and Envirofone payed me £80 for this donkey - I was pleased to get naything. HTC make good phone, Windows 6.5 is not a suitable OS for them. I would certainly never go back to WinPho and since the HD2 have preferred Android on Samsung hardware. This was a phone to avoid!

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Does the job if you're not fussed about the latest technology.

The build quality of this phone is impressive with a brushed aluminum finish and metallic feel through the middle of the back of the phone and rubbery feel towards the top and bottom. The body is solid and there are no creaks although there is also a possibility of the auto focus lens in the camera displacing itself, and while this will not affect how well the camera works, there is a rattle when you shake the phone.Although the phone runs windows mobile 6.5, you are able to root this phone and flash a custom ROM running any operating system (to unlock all capabilities and change operating systems to android, windows phone 7, meego or ubuntu, read more here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=531). The original experience with windows mobile 6.5 is not terrible but at the same time is not a very pleasant experience. There is a confusing and unclear menu screen portrayed by the classic windows start icon, with many of the features, such as file explorer, attempting to replicate a windows PC experience unsuccessfully. This problems are mainly due to the size of the screen as many applications have been 'optimized' for mobile phone by simply scaling them down from windows so they are not user friendly. Marketplace offers little refuge if you are in search of new apps, especially since it has now been discontinued to the effect that very few if any new apps will be developed for this operating system.The phone has a 4.3" LCD glass screen with a screen resolution of 480x800 giving you 217 pixels per inch. Considering the age of the phone this is great as it is on par with phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S II. The screen supports 720p HD videos making the movie watching experience pleasurable, even on a (in terms of watching movies) smaller screen. However although the phones Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor sounds impressive, it often struggles with heavier tasks such as the playback of HD videos which makes the screen resolution useless as you cannot fully utilize it. It deals with daily tasks like web browsing reasonably well and of the on board 576MB of RAM only 448MB is usable again creating lag when multiple applications are open. The built in storage is less than exciting coming in at a very low 512MB which in current terms is almost useless meaning you will almost certainly need an SD card, which fortunately is supported by this phone although there is a limit of 32GB on the expandable memory (SD cards).The camera is 5MP with an autofocus sensor making it reasonable for taking the occasional picture but the professional, or even the amateur to be honest, will not be very impressed with the results. The textures and tones aren't terrible but with the technology available today, this camera just doesn't keep up. Now onto what a phone is actually meant to be used for, calls and texts. The call quality is decent, but could be improved. The phone has a tendency to drop out of calls when running the native windows mobile 6.5, a problem that seems to have been rectified on android and other operating systems. The phone speaker grille which you hold to your ear is also uncomfortable when used for a long time due to the sharp edges overall making the calling experience not the best, but just acceptable. There are no special features of note when running windows mobile 6.5, but plenty of functions and options become available if you use this phone to run other operating systems, particularly android.I bought this phone on a £15/month contract 3 years ago, but the price has now dropped dramatically and can be bought for under £100, even under £50 at some places. This makes it a great buy as it has many features to match current phones and costs a fraction of the price. Overall it is a great phone and in its native operating system is lagging far behind the times now. However for a knowledgeable technology user, this could even be considered the most up to date phone due to the constant custom ROMs from xda (heres the link again: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=531).

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If you don't mind flashing Android to this device, you surely have a bargain on your hands.

The HTC HD2 is a phone I bought back in 2010 and at that time it was a pretty good phone, whilst the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS was something different to Apple's iOS. It did everything pretty well. Nice clear phone calls, bright flashlight, decent music quality, very clear pictures for its time, amazing 4.3 inch screen. It's marketplace however was absolutely horrible. Hardly any games, which was the main drawback in my eyes. However, after joining modding site XDA, things changed for the better. I found out that Google's Android OS (Which was just starting to make noise at the time) was flashable to the device. If anything went wrong I could just flash Windows Mobile 6.5 back on to the device (Which I never ended up doing).

Before I go into how amazing the phone is running Android, let me share some experiences with you using Windows Mobile 6.5. First things first, the phone is big and it is also thick, which I actually liked. It felt nice to pull out my phone and rather than someone pointing out "ooo you have an iPhone", they would ask in excitement what phone is THAT!. A lot of people weren't used to seeing a phone with an extremely bright flashlight either (This helped a lot when working in the cinema). The layout of the phone is pretty straight forward, with call and reject buttons on the bottom, along with a home button, a back button and a windows button.

The screen is a joy to look at and whilst there are clearer screens available in todays market, you cannot frown upon a 4.3 inch screen. The camera is pretty good. There is a bit of noise in photo's and in video clips but it trounces some of the horrible pictures I see people taking with their 2 and 3 megapixel blackberry camera's. Touch screen response is pretty good, although picking apps using the Windows Mobile app drawer can be a bit iffy. Not much to say about the Windows marketplace. It has been shut down and was never good in the first place. The music player is good, with nice sound quality and a very nifty CoverFlow listing of albums which is nice to show off.

All in all a very decent phone, and much better than some £90-£150 phones out today. I would advise though, if you don't plan on flashing Android, you'd be better off buying something like the Galaxy S or S Advanced.

If you do plan on flashing Android, you'll be inviting yourself into another world. First off, battery life is improved by quite a few hours running Android and I am easily able to run the phone for a whole day although I do charge the phone nightly regardless. Phone batteries actually last longer if charged midway, rather than always charging them when they are almost depleted or empty. The biggest benefit of all though, is access to the Google Play Store (Formerly Android Market). Being able to download the plethora of games available, and social networking apps (Like good ol Facebook & Twitter) is a joy to behold, and they do load quickly, thanks to the old but robust Snapdragon CPU inside.

For those who don't talk a lot but still have an internet connection can make the most of the 3G/HSDPA speeds and use apps like Whatsapp and Pingchat. The camera gets a bump up in quality, thanks to the XDA devs being able to take away some of the image compression and touchscreen response and smoothness is improved too, Typing messages is much easier than using Windows Mobile 6.5 whilst auto spell works like a breeze 95% of the time. Phone call quality is largely unchanged, it was fine before so this was never an issue. The music player is slightly improved in terms of standard audio quality. Music can be refined to your specific taste's though, largely due to the amount of different music player apps available in the Google Play Store. Let me add that Google Maps works wonderfully and the GPS can normally find my location within 10 seconds.

Flashing the phone with Android is a pretty straight forward process, although I would recommend reading the FAQs on XDA should you decide to go down this route. All in all though the benefits outweigh any cons you can think of, and I can't imagine myself ever going back to WM 6.5 now. A plethora of apps, from instant messaging, to games (Such as the immensely popular "Angry Birds"), to music players, custom keyboards and skins, flashing Android (Which is as of writing, the most popular mobile phone OS in the world) can never be a bad idea. For those too scared to do this though, look elsewhere for your next phone.

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Great phone for the money

As my first HTC I was of course sceptical, already building up a notorious name I couldn't help think that their reputation would precede them.

How wrong I was, My HTC HD2 is just the phone I'm looking for. All the features of and iPhone, without the extortionate pricetag, I got mine for around £200 which I though was a steal. The battery would last around 3 days without any energy zapping apps and the like, but I just put mine on charge every night, just as routine.

The 4.3 inch screen is just beautiful to do ANYTHING on; watch HD videos, browse pictures play games, this HTC packs a punch in the screen department!

One thing that needs to be addressed is the size of this phone, after adding a case onto it, this phone is seriously bulky and would struggle to fit in a small pocket. Although most of the phone is made up of screen if you're after a compact phone this phone is not for you.

Android 2.3 comes up trumps again with it's unique unlock system and very easy to use interface, Overall a great phone for the money.

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Ideal for business, lacking for media use and all round fun element.

The HTC HD2 is a nice looking phone, large screen, and has an easy to use interface. I found the email facility very useful as I could have a number of email accounts that would update either manually or at set time frames. With it being a Windows based phone, it came with Word, Excel, Power Point and Notepad which were easy to use and ideal for me to send and receive documents in those formats as well as creating them. The downside to the Windows operating system is the Market Place where you download applications to your device. I found this to be lacking in diversity, especially when comapred to Android or Itunes. There is an issue with the web browser, both Internet Explorer and Opera, that there is no flash capability, so viewing some sites proves difficult. There, is at present, no browser that offers flash player for the HD2. If you like you're phone to reach its full media potential then perhaps this phone isn't for you. If you would like a practical, windows phone, easy to sync with your windows computer and ideal for business then this is a great phone.

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An Excellent Phone

As the saying goes "life is what you make it" the same goes for the HD2 the phone is what you make it. When I first got my phone I didn't care to much for Windows Mobile 6.5 and I still don't, but one thing about this phone that I absolutely love is being able to run Android on it. It gives the phone a second life. Only thing is that to put Android on it you have to know what you are doing, its not difficult if you go to XDA.

I enjoy the big 4.3 inch display that the phone has, also my phone came with a 16gb SD card that had Transformers 1 & 2 preloaded on. The phone also included a 1Ghz processor, making multitasking on the phone very smooth.

Basically the phone itself is excellent, but Windows 6.5 is not, but one advantage is if you don't like it you can remove it.

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I used to say this was my best phone yet - 6 months later, Windows caught up with me.

I've purchased this phone in March, 2010, which is around 5 months after it's release in November 2009.

At that time I had Nokia N97 (which was 'ok') and from touching HD2 for the first time from a friend, I was mesmorised by the touch-interface, the screen size and the response.

I've always liked my OS to have some sort of eye-candy features; which N97 severely lacks, or any other Symbian based phones. This may sound silly and not entirely practical, but that's just how I like my phones to be - as I get bored of them very quickly.

So I spent 300 GBP for this phone, which was a good price at the time, and I started to use this Windows 6.5 phone. What I would like to note about Windows phone; terrible speed, responsiveness, ugly UI, complicated OS and not at all user-friendly. I've had HTC Diamond, Sony Xperia X1 and I was very disappointed with the OS every time.

Now, HTC HD2 packs 1GHz Snapdragon (if I recall correctly) processor, and blimey, it did the trick (or so I thought first). Tabs moved seemlessly, applications opened in a blink and the capacitative touch screen was just fantastic! Wonderful! Brilliantly pleasant! How else could I put it!

So I fell in love with this phone; initially with the size of the screen, which is 4.3 inches (I remember this as this was the phone with the biggest screen) which I, comparing with a PSP, found out they shared the same size screen! Quite astonishing I must say, to own a phone with the same screen size as a games console! It is high resolution (800x480 I think), and to those who don't really know what this means, let's just say you won't be able to see the pixels - the pictures are viewed crisp, and brilliantly.

HTC Sense: Van Gogh paints the overlay. Windows 6.5 is a dull, ugly and conservative OS - there's nothing fun about it. Now HTC engineers cleverly employed Vincent to mask all the ugliness - and now Windows OS has become something of a masterpiece. HTC Sense is a intuitive user-interface, that's been overlayed on Windows OS, to make it more user-friendly. There are large panels for thumbs/fingers to press, simple designs, diagrams and pictures that organised the whole phone to be great. You'll see the home screen, with massive retro-style clock, with weather animations flowing marvellously and beneath it are few pictures that can be pressed to open up an application. The weather animations are just stunning - whether the current location you're in is pouring down, sunny, snowing, windy, the animations will sweep across the screen to alert you and make you feel like you own a very interactive intelligent device. I loved it.

Less of my too personal opinions: more about the phone; Camera is an important factor which many look for in a phone nowadays. 5 mega-pixels, produces attractive, crisp images and video-recording is of high quality, though unfortunately not of 720p HD recording. Some have wondered if some software was able to enable HD-recording but this is yet to be established. I was very content with the camera performance and you won't be disappointed (and talking about disappointment, I've been very disappointed in the past about cameraphones).

Music player is decent and so is the videoplayer. The good thing about having a Windows phone is that there are a number of applications which you can freely download and install on your phone - such as the DivX player, which will play most of your favourite movies. The big size of the screen will be a major plus when watching films or music videos.

You must have the internet-enabled sim card, because without the ability to browse internet/watch YouTube videos, this phone is a bit of a pointless device for you. Big screen is great for mails, texts, reading the news, watching the most viewed YouTube video, and aha! for navigation. Always, and by always, I mean without doubt, phones need assists from the net, with its integrated GPS module, for more accurate and pin-point navigation via Copilot (not free) or Google Maps (yey, free!). I've used Google maps for navigation few times, and it's brilliant - the big screen really does its good here.

Now that's about all I have to say about the phone out of the box. After a while, people get bored, even a phone with this calibre - 1GHz processor, Windows 6.5 OS, 5MP camera, 4.3 screen, videos, music, mail-integration, built in facebook tabs, tweeter tab, sat nav, etc etc, the list goes on, but this just isn't enough, and I started to see little flaws - the phone is still Windows.

Now, this is a big problem for me, as certain things - like phone crashing, and getting slower with use and with filling up with microSD card (oh yes, you can expand the memory with external memory card), battery life becoming worse and worse, and the fun of touch-interface starts to wear off - capacitative yet not capable enough to beat the iPhone - and I'm not even saying iPhone 4 - can't beat any of the iPhones.

This is where the fun begins, and also, where most of us have given up and bought a Blackberry or an iPhone - 3rd party applications and modifications. The World of mods is unlimited for this phone - new Roms (now this is an image, which you can install on your phone, which has certain parts of the OS modified by the developer to make the system run smoother etc) which can change the look of the phone entirely (I mean, different colour, different pictures, icons etc) but of course, the essence of the OS remain - still a Windows phone. These Roms will provide a smoother and more refined user-interface than what you get from HD2 straight out of the box. Now, comes what's even more exciting - Android. Now, I shall mention this briefly, but developers had been cleverly ported Android OS to HD2, and this is a major thing because HTC makes different phones and their hardware based on the OS they're going to imprint on the phone. HTC HD2 with Android, will be the equivalent of HTC Desire HD (or even HTC Desire, though it has a smaller screen). It's basically the same phone but with different OS. Android is by far, the better OS, than Windows, in terms of usability, function and hardware-OS integration.

It's very difficult at the moment to recommend this phone - there are many alternatives out there now which I personally would prefer having and will recommend. The phone has a great potential, and to me, it is a pity that it is on Windows (though this is a foolish remark, as like I said, there is Desire HD, which is HD2 on Android) and even with such advanced hardware, Windows have ruined the experience. If you really want a smartphone to do smart things correctly at all times, then Windows 6.5 isn't for you. If you want a giant of a multimedia phone, which is smart and will do its tasks 6/10 times, then go for it (and if you have the cash).

Oh, and in terms of phone build; glass-screen is surrounded by rubber-plastic soft edges which is great and will withstand shocks, and won't easily be scuffed (unless you drop it on asphalt), though it gets quite annoying as dust can accumulate in between the rubber and screen. Oh and yes, also watch out for the battery life. The big screen really will drain its small battery - so much for a big screen huh?

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a phone with so much potential its very disappointing

The phone is visually pleasing, I was never a fan of the iPhone or any Apple product however the characteristics of the HD2 were very similar. After using a friends I decided to purchase the phone on an 18 month contract which was a bad idea.

Updating the software proves to be very difficult, and the HTC website in general seems very poor and is not user friendly. When texting the phone stores previous messages which is useful, but after a long text conversation builds it literally takes two minutes for the history to restore before you can type your message. The phone now frequently freezes and the only fix is to remove the battery and restart the phone. Only yesterday this happened and the date reset to July 1981 for no apparent reason.

The app store is average, and doesn't compare to the iPhone marketplace. The apps I have downloaded are average at most. When I upgrade my phone I will be steering clear of the HTC phones and possibly switch to the iPhone or possibly back to a Blackberry.

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Great for keeping your life organised, but not ideal as a 'fun' phone.

I Bought this about 6 months ago, and absolutely love it!

The screen is extremely crisp and concise, allowing you to see the smallest bit of detail

The camera is phenomenal! for such a small phone camera, the photo quality is amazing, and the flash is incredibly powerful, perfect for nights out/parties etc.

The phones layout is good, the scrolling homescreen tabs across the bottom make it easy to access the essentials, but they are not really customiseable. you can only add and remove certain tabs but this isnt an issue as there is the option of the changing the 9 quicklinks (3 on display and 6 hidden, swipe up to see them) which can be anything from a Program to a bookmark you may have. its very easy to use and easy to set everything up

The email syncs very well, as does the twitter.

My facebook seems to struggle but this doesnt happen with a mate of mines HD2.

The only downside is the marketplace. there are VERY few apps, and even fewer that are free. If you want an APP happy phone, go Android.

If this was an android phone, i would give it 5 stars.

Great for business use.

Battery life is limited if you are a heavy user.

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On the whole the HTC does a nice job, just not a perfect one.

Depending on what you're looking for in a handset, the HTC HD2 may or may not be what you're looking for. The HD2 is a bit of a mixed bag, provided you buy it for the right reasons then it could be the handset for you.

I took the HD2 as my last upgrade because I wanted a handset that would let me surf the internet, watch movies, listen to music and use apps, all on the go via a stunning hi resolution screen. I thought that the HD2 would fit the bill. Everybody had an iPhone and I wanted something a little different. At the time I felt that the iPhone was highly over rated.

For the first 4 - 8 weeks I couldn't have been happier. The screen is a pure joy to look at and the menu system is as silky smooth as it looks. At least as far as the HTC Sense interface goes. You get a small degree of customisation options and all the various screens are accessible via "tabs" at the bottom of the screen. You simply slide your finger from left to right in order to access them. There is no doubt that in the looks department the handset with its HTC Sense interface is a winner.

Unfortunately this is not the whole story. As I mention the handset has a user interface called HTC Sense. This sits on top of the standard Windows Operating System (O/S) and is what makes the menus on the HD2 a joy to use. Unfortunately HTC Sense is only skin deep as the saying goes. As soon as you drop into several of the key menus you will eventually drop into the core Windows Mobile menus. These look out of place and are in some cases difficult and fiddly to use. I could spend a whole review on how difficult it is to send a picture via Bluetooth to a photo kiosk, but needless to say I gave up after about 10 minutes of attempting this. I eventually removed the MicoSD card to transfer the photo.

For the most part you are treated the excellent looking HTC Sense, it really is only if you drill down that you are presented with the standard Windows O/S interface. This may be to some peoples taste but I found the transition a little jarring, purely because the HTC Sense interface is so good as opposed to the Windows menus being so bad. Just something you need to be aware of really.

On the subject of the user interface, you can't talk about this without talking about the fabulous hi resolution screen. It really is a visual feast for your retina. It makes everything that you view seem just that little bit more vibrant, and absolute pleasure to view your snaps on as well as surfing the internet. The screen uses touch technology not unlike that of the iPhone (though not quite as responsive).

On the subject of the screen, for the most part I found it excellent. However I did notice on occasion that it would become unresponsive. This was generally when surfing the internet for any length of time. I'm not sure if this was just my hand set or across the board, I did find it quite frustrating when it occurred though. Thankfully it was only an occasional glitch.

The camera is top notch, it's a 5MP affair and is more than suitable to take your family snaps with. I have more than a few that I have printed out and are now pride of place on the wall at home. The camera will not disappoint you. There is also an option to take video but whilst it's not as good as good as you might like, it is still more than suitable for those emergency clips or for uploading onto YouTube (there is a very nice YouTube application built into the handset).

I also had high expectations for watching movies on the handset, however I found this to be a disappointing experience. Films didn't look as sharp or as clear as you might expect from a screen of this calibre. I also found that movies stuttered every now and then, if only for a millisecond. In all not a smooth experience and something that I would not recommend using the handset for. However if you are looking to view your own videos shot on the handset itself or YouTube videos then it's just the job.

When your talking Smartphones your also talking apps. If your wanting your phone to have access to a great app store, then I'm afraid you will have to look else ware. The applications store for the HD2 is out dated, stale and expensive. I found that you could pay up to £4.99 for an app that costs as little as 59p on the iPhone. I found this aspect of the phone wanting in a major way. There are some useful tools on here but it is light-years behind the App store on the iPhone, Blackberry and Nokia handsets.

Battery life is as to be expected on a Smartphone, one to two days max.

My thoughts? I can't help but feel a little disappointed in what could have been an outstanding handset. It just isn't as good as it could have been or perhaps should have been. If you want a phone for taking and viewing pictures, social networking, surfing the internet and using satnav (I found this to work a treat ), then this is the phone for you. If however you are looking for an iPhone killer, or a good all-rounder then look else ware. For me this was a bit of a disappointment but I can see how it would appeal to others.

On the whole the HTC does a nice job, just not a perfect one. Expect to make compromises if you want that luscious screen at your fingertips.

Main AdvantagesLarge clear screen, amazingly good camera, good internet browsing for the most part, good YouTube interface, clear screen for satnav software, music on the go.

Main DisadvantagesPoor app store, glitchy touch screen on occasions, poor experience once you drop into the core Windows O/S, eats battery power for breakfast.

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A very sexy phone that will forfill your mobile needs.

I was so excited to get this phone. I had been holding off getting an iPhone as I needed the functionality Windows provides rather than the restrictive iPhone. Soon all is charged up and ready to go, you are then taken through a first time setup process, of course all these settings can be tweaked through the settings function later. There is a nice Windows tutorial to help you start navigating the many many functions of this device; I would recommend using this tutorial before doing anything else.

When I finally start using the device in anger, the first thing I noticed was the speed. Thanks to the 1gig processor there is rarely any lag, I only find a slight problem when I have several apps open at the same time (just like a PC!).

There are far too many functions to list in this short review, but all I can say is everything you would want for work or play is on this epic smart phone. The messaging interface for both email and SMS is a nice sweep away style which is very sexy. Some of the apps I use regularly on my HD2 are Sat Nav (which uses the GPS built into the device), Facebook, a great torch, which uses the camera dual LED flash which is very powerful and of course the Weather app which even has a windscreen wiper washing your screen to indicate it's raining ! true genius !

The 5mp camera itself is second to none for outside shots and video, but I sometime struggle when using the flash for indoor shots, I have read that this is a known problem as the dual LED flash being too powerful and produces too much light (but I could just be my ineptitude as a photographer!). When viewing the pictures in the album, the 4.3" screen really comes into its own, with a resolution of 800x480 pix the pictures look so good. And of course the pinch zoom is very impressive; it's nice that Windows have borrowed this function from the iPhone.

As I do a lot of driving, I tend to use my HD2 to listen to music and podcasts while on the road (while using the sat nav). The default music player interface is very sexy, the inbuilt sound is average but as I tend to use it through a Bluetooth hands free/FM Transmitter (which I will be reviewing soon) so the sound I hear is via my car stereo. I have also purchased an 8gig SD card so I can have approx 48 hours of music and still have room for pictures and apps. One tip though, do not buy the cheapest SD card you can find, I made this mistake and it just wasn't recognised by the HD2.

There are a couple of niggles though:Inputting text via the touch keypad. It seems the capacitive touch screen can be too sensitive and the number of mis-spellings can be quite frustrating (though I have used other windows devices and their keyboard works just fine, so it could be the settings on my HD2)

Battery life. I know I use a lot of apps at the same time, but sometimes I have to plug in my ciggy to usb charger after driving for 3 hours or so. Normal in the pocket phone use, I tend to get 12 - 16 hours of life.

RATING: Overall I would give the HTC HD2 a mark of 9.5/10, it's the best (and sexiest) Smartphone I have seen for a long while and that includes any fruit based products &#61514;

Of course I have just touched the surface of what you can do with this Smartphone but I hope you find my review helpful.

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perfect smartphone for anybody

HTC HD2 Smartphone

My previous contract expired two weeks ago and so I was looking for a new phone.I was with Vodafone and now I am with Virgin Mobile because I managed to get the HD2 with a great talk and text package with internet. And with a phone like this the internet is needed.

The phone itself is brilliant, I love my high tech phones and the HD2 is the best I have had so farIt has a massive 4.3inch High resolution display which is perfect for watching videos, browsing websites and looking at your photos.The sound quality is fairly decent but when connecting the earphones via the 3.5mm Headphone jack the music is really crisp and clear with plenty of base.The good thing is it has an audio booster so if you lose the original headphones and buy a cheap pair you can improve the sound quality on them with this option.

The camera is a brilliant 5MP with touch focus and when viewing on the large display you can see all the details in a clear image.

The memory built in to this device is ok but not really sufficient as it only contains around 150MB, this may differ on each device but that is what mine has but you do get a 2GB memory card with the phone which is very useful

The phone has a very well built metal body with firm rubber grips for you to handle the phone easily.The battery life is good I haven't charged mine now for 4 days but I haven't listened to music or made any calls on it during this time I have only replied to text messages so I haven't used it much and the battery is still on a respectable 32% as I write this.Of course with the screen being so large that will use the battery quickly and for people who use their phone often and watch videos and such then this will most likely need charging daily but it does only take around 2 hours to fully charge and it can also charge via the USB cable supplied via your computer.

The speed of this device is amazing, it is virtually lag free mainly due to it's very powerful 1GHz Snapdragon processor.

The O/S of the device is very smart it uses what HTC call HTC Sense.This is a tab based interface which is extremely easy to navigate. it also has your social network needs such as twitter, Myspace and Facebook .Each tab shows a different category such as messaging, internet, email, contacts, Images & video.You can personalise all these to change the order in which they appear or add and remove tabs to suit your needs.

The pack you get with this phone contains the HTC HD2 Mobile phone, USB Charge cable and Plug, 2GB memory card, Leather pouch to protect the phone when on the move and then finally the legal documentation and help guides.

Overall I really like this phone and will be happy to have it for the next 2 years until this contract ends.I have not had any issues with it as of yet but I will update this review if I come across anySo all in all a great device and I will happily score this 5/5.

If you are looking to buy this phone it can be purchased from Amazon for £470Or Get it on contract like I did, the cheapest I found is the one am on which is Virgin Mobile £30 per month 24 months. With this you get 800minutes unlimited texts and unlimited internet access.

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The iPhones rival / Top 5 phones of all time.

NERDY STUFF:

The HTC HD2 follows on from last years HTC Touch HD by using the tried and tested formula of stuffing in more features than ever before.Perhaps the most obvious feature, is the massive 4.3 inch display. This capacitive touchscreen has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels which is the largest creen currently on any production mobile phone. The screen isn't the only thing going for the HTC HD2, such as the Windows 6.5 mobile operating system, on the back is a 5 mega pixel camera, with auto focus and dual LED flash. Which is one of the best found on a windows mobile device.This is a dual band 3G device with HSPA, High speed date support, giving maximum download speeds of 7.2 mega bits per second. And a maximum upload speed of 2 mega bits per second. The HTC HD2 also supports quadband GSM and GPRS, and also has built in WIFI.Unlike some other smartphones, the HTC HD2 can also be used as a modem, even as a WIFI router.It has built in GPS with additional compas plus HTC's footprints application.The multi-media player can cope with most media formats, and the large display is particularly well suited to video playback, theres also a built in FM radio, and comes with what is standard on most phones these days, a 3.5mm headphone socket.

EDC Review (every-day-carry):

After recieveing this for review when it came out, after carrying it for 2 weeks I decided to pick one up for mysself on contract. And this is still what I use today when I am not EDCing a manufacturers product.It really is a smartphone, with emphasis on 'smart' as it really is the phone I have allways wanted, it has absoloutly everything that the iPhone, BlackBerry, and the Nokia has, but refurbished, given the HTC touch and put into the device.

Aside from technical aspects the phones is asthetically pleasing. It really is smart and alot of people have mistaken it for an iPhone. Its extremely well feeling in the hand and I shall continue to use it as long as it's the best on the market.

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A very clever (and pretty) piece of kit!!

After months of waiting and extensions of release dates, I finally got my hands on 'my precious' new HTC HD2. Although it is amazing and I am still learning how vast its capabilities go.. it has not come without problems. It randomly decides to not send text messages, this has happened twice now and from reading other comments, I see that this seems to be a common problem, for all you know, the messages have been sent so it is only when you dont receive expected replies that the suspicion arises. I have had to phone vodaphone twice now for this and go through a series of steps. My colleague has the same phone but through O2 and has had to be sent a new sim card as that wasnt working correctly and finally - there seems to be a common promlem with battery survival.. my phone which I don't use excessively only lasts about a day and I am yet to phone up about this problem. Aside from these teething issues it remains an amazing piece of technology, the display is fab and I love the quick and easy 5 day weather forecast you get. connection to the internet is faster than my computer at home and it links up to my works computer perfectly. The camera is brill although I am still learning. The touch screen is mega sensitive and even with a screen protector on I am going to order a stylus as it takes me forever to write a text - constant spelling mistakes being made. Another guy in my office actually sent his back and much prefers his i phone - the downside being he loses the ability to use the windows technology. I think the movement from crap phone to HTC will be an easier one than from i phone.